Anything To Anywhere! Spitfire Girls soars through Lancaster
Written by Jodie Passey
With more and more distance growing between WWII and today, it could be easy for the visceral realities of wartime to fade from our collective imagination. With great loss, fear, and austerity also came a great sense of community, hope, and joy - especially in 1945, when Britain could finally celebrate peacetime. 2025 marks 80 years since that historic moment, and to honour the occasion, the Dukes is playing host to Spitfire Girls: a vivid, heartfelt portrait of the women who helped win the war.
Katherine Senior’s story centres around Bett and Dotty, sisters who both sign up to the Air Transport Auxiliary. They represent all the women who flew into the unknown, those 168 pilots who voluntarily entered the fray with little training. ‘Anything To Anywhere’ was the ATA’s slogan, a phrase that embodied the freedom, responsibility, and danger of the job. We can only imagine what such an opportunity meant for this group of women who had few other outlets for their adventurous spirits. Spitfire Girls captures both the excitement of that moment in time, and the traumatic aftermath many of the pilots suffered.
The show also has a substance that transcends the stage. The production team has thrown themselves into research and education for the communities they’re visiting on their UK tour. They’ve created a handy resource pack for school groups attending the show (teachers rejoice!), and in March, the cast met up with their ATA consultant Candy Adkins, daughter of Captain Jackie Moggridge, at Southampton’s Solent Sky Museum. Of course, Lancashire has its own history with the ATA: Hangar 42 in Blackpool - where Amy Johnson set off for her final journey - still welcomes visitors.
Such a show, then, must come from a company that knows how to pack a visual punch. Tilted Wig’s back catalogue, which includes The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (2021) and Frankenstein (2023), proves its flair for the spectacular. The performers’ bracing movement embodies the spirit of the spitfire, doubled in the spirit of the women who flew it, and the storytelling takes us through this journey from a breathtakingly human perspective. To create a show that’s “a little bit of everything” (Northern Arts Revue), with just six actors and a minimal set, takes a mighty creative team.
During WWII, the British public saw newsreels of women doing traditionally male work for the first time. They posed an ideological challenge for a society firmly invested in the belief that women belonged in the home. Lisa J Hackett explores how, to soften the ‘uncanny’ image of the female pilot, the media downplayed their impressive skills and emphasised their support role. Many services issued ‘distinct “feminine” versions of male uniforms’ to differentiate them, and ATA chief Sir Gerard d’Erlanger initially wanted them to fly in skirts. In reality, their work handling unfamiliar equipment in unpredictable weather was incredibly dangerous - but despite their hard work and sacrifice, they did not exactly receive the same praise as their male colleagues.
Editor of Aeroplane Magazine CG Grey was especially disgruntled, commenting: ‘The real menace is the woman who thinks that she ought to be flying a high-speed bomber when she really has not the intelligence to scrub the floor of a hospital properly.’ Others simply would not work with them, with some ferry pool chief officers refusing to allow female pilots to land on their bases. Thankfully, the female pilots also received a good dose of respect. In 1942, the pilots were recognised for their work by being the first government employees in the UK to be awarded equal pay.
Many aspects of Senior’s play are still relevant today, a reminder of the tenuous gaps between past, present, and future. But it’s also simply important to remember that time and the people who lived in it. As a tribute to the real-life women pilots and the spirit of sisterhood, Tilted Wig brings the past to life in stunning form, and their passion shines through. Isn’t it wonderful to see such a powerhouse flying through Lancaster?
Spitfire Girls runs 6th - 10th May
